Recently in Recordings
05 Jun 2007
Doktor Faust eclipses most of Ferrucio’s Busoni’s other work in terms of popularity. Surprisingly, though, he wrote little song. Only 40 pieces remain, many written in his youth. »
04 Jun 2007
“We’ll discuss the greatest tenor in history, Jussi Björling, and his astounding voice.” »
04 Jun 2007
I was never much impressed by the Russian performances of this most famous of Rubinstein’s
many operas. »
31 May 2007
Naxos’s DVD venture has produced a fascinating document, the original documentary shorts The Plow that Broke the Plains and The River, filmed by Pare Lorentz, with the Virgil Thomson scores re-recorded by the post-Classical Ensemble, led by Angel Gil-Ordóñez. »
31 May 2007
Given the fine recent recordings of Mahler’s Second Symphony on both CD and DVD, the release of Pierre Boulez’s performances from 26 and 27 March 2005 at the Philharmonie, Berlin, is a further contribution to the interpretations of this important work. »
30 May 2007
Just as sausage can be best enjoyed without any extensive knowledge of its preparation and
contents, one should slide slowly into the luxuriant bath that is Massenet’s Esclarmonde and leave the libretto far to the side. »
30 May 2007
Released in early 2007, Marin Alsop’s performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is an exciting, new recording of this familiar and durable scenic cantata, based on medieval lyrics in Latin and German. »
30 May 2007
Verboten und verbannt — forbidden and banned — a phrase used with Jewish composers whose music was proscribed by the Nazis brings to mind more than musical censorship, but also the atrocities that culminated in the Holocaust. »
30 May 2007
Curmudgeons and aesthetes may have to fight their gag reflex to enjoy some luscious music-making on the latest disc, Angel Dances, from that hot studio band, The Twelve Berlin Philharmonic Cellists. »
29 May 2007
Towards the end of his life Britten became interested in the idea of developing the opera experience beyond the technical confines of the stage. He would have, I think, loved this film because it’s so intelligently sensitive to his fundamental ideas. It is, no less, a work of art built around a work of art. »
20 May 2007
This recording is a souvenir in more than one sense. »
20 May 2007
The quality packaging of Anonymous 4’s latest recording indicates the group’s importance to their label, Harmonia Mundi. »
09 May 2007
In the countless performances of Leoncavallo’s masterpiece Pagliacci since its 1892 premiere, there must have been times when the light tenor singing Beppe watched the other tenor, of heavier voice, in the lead role of Canio and wondered if someday he (the Beppe) would take on the dramatic role of the homicidal clown. »
09 May 2007
Audrey Stottler’s Wagner recital provides ample evidence of a voice with the range and heft for
the challenging roles of Brünnhilde and Isolde, as well as Sieglinde, a role often sung by a vocalist with less firepower. »
09 May 2007
Dare one assume that with this disc, Alison Balsom becomes the first artist to bring her lung power to both Norma’s “Casta Diva” and Die Zauberflöte’s “Der hölle rache” in the same recital? »
03 May 2007
I often wonder who decides what records will be used to produce historical vocal issues. »
03 May 2007
For those who didn’t long ago purchased or exchanged this Salzburg recital via the pirate
connections, this is a fine opportunity to get maybe the best testimonial of this artist. »
03 May 2007
The commitment of Naxos to American music is substantial and admirable. »
02 May 2007
Filmed for television in 1971, this performance of the German translation of Orphée aux enfers (1858) as Orpheus in der Unterwelt breaks the conventional wisdom that some espouse about the weaknesses of opera or opera when conceived for the small screen. »
02 May 2007
Among the virtues of hearing Bach cantatas performed in liturgical order—one of the hallmarks
of John Eliot Gardiner’s stunning Cantata Pilgrimage of 2000—is the chance to savor Bach’s range of approach to unified text themes. »
01 May 2007
Dynamic brought its cameras to the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy, in August 2005 to
record Bianca e Falliero, one of Rossini's so-called “serious” operas, and one that had only been rescued from many decades of neglect by the festival itself, in 1986. »
25 Apr 2007
Over a century after its premiere, Mahler's Second Symphony continues to be a compelling work and is as relevant now as it was when the work was conceived. »
25 Apr 2007
More than ever, compilations of previously released material fill the shelves of those stores still
selling classical music. »
19 Apr 2007
Krzyzstof Penderecki (b. 1933) has contributed a body of works to the modern repertoire, and his Symphony no. 7, which he composed 1996 (premiere 1997 in Jerusalem), is an impressive composition. »
16 Apr 2007
The orchestral songs of Gustav Mahler remain an important contribution to the genre, and stand
well alongside similar works by Berlioz, Wolf, and Strauss. »
15 Apr 2007
This sumptuous 2006 release was recorded live in the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in late
1993 for European TV broadcast the following year. »
11 Apr 2007
“Linvitation au voyage” is an appropriate title for this collection of French song, which makes available a number of fine performances of both familiar and rare works. »
11 Apr 2007
With a label such as Gala, a purveyor of live recordings of various provenance, some adjustment to compromised sound quality can be expected. »
07 Apr 2007
This excellent disc brings together two ballet scores from the far ends of Leonard Bernstein’s compositional career. »
06 Apr 2007
Kurt Weill’s perennial appeal can be attributed to various factors, not the least of which is the genuine craft of his stage works. »
06 Apr 2007
Film music has become a sort of refuge for some music lovers turned off by the work of those serious music composers who have turned increasingly away from attempting an encounter with a broader public, retreating into an insular word of academic composition. »
04 Apr 2007
With some deliberation the Metropolitan Opera releases DVD versions of live television broadcasts from its heyday as a PBS mainstay. »
30 Mar 2007
A classic Seinfeld episode revolved around a brush with the “third” of the Three Tenors - the one whom no one could quite put a name to. »
27 Mar 2007
Known almost iconically for his symphonies, Anton Bruckner devoted a great deal of his compositional output to vocal music, including choral works in both German and Latin. »
26 Mar 2007
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French instrumental music was closely identified with dance and dance suites. »
26 Mar 2007
Although milestones in the history of opéra-comique, Grétry’s operas are infrequently revived and rarely recorded. »
25 Mar 2007
This 2005 production of the Mozart-Da Ponte masterpiece Don Giovanni makes for a frustrating experience. »
21 Mar 2007
When Matilde di Shabran was premiered in Rome on Feb. 24, 1821, it was billed as a
“melodrama giocoso” (which is the equivalent of an opera semiseria), somewhere between an opera buffa and an opera seria in character. »
21 Mar 2007
Asked in an interview by Opera News on his opinion on updating, James Levine replied that it often intensified one or another aspect of the story but that in general it was not possible to update without distorting the story and the equilibrium in the whole opera. »
21 Mar 2007
Our modern sense of the eighteenth-century Lutheran cantata derives in large part from the works of J. S. Bach—works that have been foundational in the early music movement, works that have much shaped our understanding of Bach, and works that we now know in an impressive array of different recordings. »
21 Mar 2007
I am surely not the only one who doesn’t understand why this sparkling score is not performed
more often. »
21 Mar 2007
In setting the scene or furthering the action on stage, the opera chorus often provides some
memorable aural scenery in works by composers from Claudio Monteverdi to Arnold
Schoenberg, and this collection offers a representative selection of examples from both those
composers, and well as a number of others. Recorded on 14 January 2004, this concert of the
Stuttgart Staatsopernchor and Staatsorchester offered a program devoted to memorable choruses. »
21 Mar 2007
Based from concerts given on 22 August, 7 September, and 8 September 2005, this recording of
Mahler’s Sixth Symphony is the latest release of the Concertgebouw’s own RCO Live label. »
20 Mar 2007
In their attempt to recreate a combination of musical styles typical of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Nürnberg, Schola Hungarica and its directors László Dobszay & Janka Szendrei have chosen selections from the Gänsebuch, described as the “only complete extant source for the pre-Reformation liturgy of the mass in Nürnberg.” [CD liner-notes, p. 3] »
20 Mar 2007
I never heard the 1966 live recording with Margherita Rinaldi and Paolo Montarsolo and I don’t
have a clue what the sound picture is like. »
13 Mar 2007
Two weeks before viewing these DVD’s, I attended a performance of the same opera at De Vlaamse Opera in a new production by Ivo van Hove; Flemish boss of the most important Amsterdam theatre company. »
08 Mar 2007
With the distance of time, is it allowable to feel affection for Herbert von Karajan, beyond any respect — grudging or otherwise — for his long, starry career? »
08 Mar 2007
Recorded between 18 and 29 June 1984 at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, this production of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nűrnberg makes a classic presentation of the opera available in a two-DVD set issued in 2006 by Deutsche Grammophon. »
08 Mar 2007
This concert was given on New Year’s eve in the year 2000, and the frail Claudio Abbado who
comes out to conduct makes for an alarming sight. »
28 Feb 2007
The booklet essay writer effuses passionately about this filmed Kalman operetta, Die Csárdásfürstin. Jürgen Otten gushes over the "immortal melodies," Anna Moffo's "precious jewel" of a voice, and Rene Kollo's "innate nobility." »
